Monday, September 26, 2011

The first update is unrelated to building, but instead to my newest title of father/builder! Here I sit in front of this screen with my new boy, Leo. He was born on the 31st of August at 5:40 AM on an earthen floor of a cob house. Weighing in at 8 pounds 4 ounces (at birth), he is a strikingly handsome new member of the family. Notice below how in an almost chameleon-like fashion, he adjusts the look of his head to be camouflaged within his surrounding context.

There is a lot more going on at the work site than I have photos to show for...

Here is Mike showing our friend April how to apply earthen plaster, around the new glass blocks that he installed in the shower stall.

The house is starting to show signs of having cob and earth and curves in it...

Here is the loose fence system I've been using to sculpt with cob. It's a lot like making any other kind of sculpture around a skeleton of metal.

The start of a sculpted niche for a coffee mug or candle (or something less romantic, such as car keys).

The pattern of scratches in the plaster will allow the next layer to stick into the existing one.

Tongue-and-groove pine boards stained and polyurethaned, and waiting to make themselves into a ceiling.

A peek into the custom concrete shower stall:

And today a cut a big hole in the wall for a brand new bathroom window!

The main reason for this window is because I am going to install a baseboard heater along this wall as a temporary heating solution for the winter, and the heaters work best if they are beneath windows (as the cold air drops down, is heated up, and then spit back up into the room, creating a circular draft). And eventually after the addition is built, the door to the bathroom is going to be where the new window is anyway, so we're half a step closer to having a door. The window will of course have a curtain over it, for when one wishes to sit on the throne in privacy.